Fukuoka

Fukuoka (福岡市, Fukuoka-shi) is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu in Japan. It is the most populous city on the island, followed by Kitakyushu. It is the largest city and metropolitan area west of Keihanshin. The city was designated on April 1, 1972, by government ordinance. Greater Fukuoka (福岡都市圏), with 2.5 million people (2005 census), is part of the heavily industrialized Fukuoka–Kitakyushu zone as well as Northern Kyushu.

As of July 2011, Fukuoka is Japan's sixth largest city, having passed the population of Kyoto. Since the founding of Kyoto in 794, this marks the first time that a city west of the Kinki region has a larger population than Kyoto. In ancient times, however, the area near Fukuoka, the Chikushi region, was thought by some historians to have possibly been even more influential than the Yamato region.

Pre-history

Exchanges from the continent and the Northern Kyushu area date as far back as Old Stone Age. It has been thought that waves of immigrants arrived in Northern Kyushu from mainland Asia. Several Kofun exist.

Miyamoto Musashi

Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, c. 1584 – June 13, 1645), also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke or, by his Buddhist name, Niten Dōraku, was an expert Japanese swordsman and rōnin. Musashi, as he was often simply known, became renowned through stories of his excellent, and unique double bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 60 duels. He was the founder of the Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū or Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship and in his final years authored the The Book of Five Rings (五輪の書, Go Rin No Sho), a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.

Biography

Birth

The details of Miyamoto Musashi's early life are difficult to verify. Musashi himself simply states in The Book of Five Rings that he was born in Harima Province.Niten Ki (an early biography of Musashi) supports the theory that Musashi was born in 1584: "[He] was born in Banshū, in Tenshō 12 [1584], the Year of the Monkey." The historian Kamiko Tadashi, commenting on Musashi's text, notes: "[...]Munisai was Musashi's father...he lived in Miyamoto village, in the Yoshino district [of Mimasaka Province]. Musashi was most probably born here." His childhood name was Bennosuke (弁之助).

Japan

Coordinates: 35°N 136°E / 35°N 136°E / 35; 136

Japan (ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/; Japanese: 日本 Nippon [nip̚põ̞ɴ] or Nihon [nihõ̞ɴ]; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, "State of Japan") is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", and Japan is often called the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan's population of 126 million is the world's tenth largest. Approximately 9.1 million people live in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, which is the sixth largest city proper in the OECD. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the world's largest metropolitan area with over 35 million residents and the world's largest urban agglomeration economy.

Sasaki Kojirō

Sasaki Kojirō (佐々木 小次郎, also known as Sasaki Ganryū) (1585? – April 13, 1612), often anglicised to Kojirō Sasaki, was a prominent Japanese swordsman widely considered a master of his craft, born in Fukui Prefecture. He lived during the Sengoku and early Edo periods and is most remembered for his death while battling Miyamoto Musashi in 1612.

History

Sasaki went by the fighting name of Ganryū (巌流, lit. "Large Rock style"), which was also the name of the kenjutsu school he had founded. It is said that Sasaki studied the Chūjō-ryu of sword fighting from either Kanemaki Jisai or Toda Seigen. Toda Seigen was a master of the kodachi. If Sasaki had indeed learned Chūjō-ryu from Seigen, he would have been his master's sparring partner. Due to his master's use of the kodachi, Sasaki used a nodachi, or a long katana, against him, therefore eventually excelling in its use. It was after defeating his master's younger brother that he left and founded the Ganryū. The first reliable account of his life states that in 1610, because of the fame of his school and his many successful duels, including once when he fended off three opponents with a tessen, Sasaki was honored by Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki as the chief weapons master of the Hosokawa fief north of Kyūshū. Sasaki later became skilled in wielding a nodachi, and used one he called "Monohoshizao" ("The Laundry-Drying Pole") as his main weapon.

This Life

This Life is a BBC television drama that was produced by World Productions and screened on BBC Two. Two series were broadcast in 1996 and 1997 and a reunion special in 2007. The series centres on the life of five twentysomething law graduates embarking upon their careers while sharing a house in south London.

It is considered to be the definitive statement on twentysomething life in mid-1990s "Cool Britannia" London and is notable for its Britpop soundtrack and pushing of sex and drugs broadcasting boundaries of the time.

Production

The series was created by, and some episodes written by, Amy Jenkins. Other writers contributed scripts, including Joe Ahearne (who also directed some episodes—the only person to do both on the series), Ian Iqbal Rashid, Amelia Bullmore and Matthew Graham. Tony Garnett was the executive producer and Jane Fallon worked as a producer on both series.

When the first series was screened it was a modest critical success, rather than being a ratings "hit". Nevertheless, the original production agreement secured a second series. In the lead-up to the broadcast of the second series, the entire first series was repeated, helping to generate a critical "buzz" around the programme, to the point that millions of viewers were waiting to discover the ultimate resolutions to the various plot-lines and generating front-page newspaper coverage.